A Penny Saved
by Mayclore
Summary: One fateful morning, the twins finally reach their limit with Stan's cheapskate nature. Dipper takes it upon himself soon after to find out just why his great uncle is so frugal.


Dipper was the first to wake up, stretching and groaning as he tried to combat the effects of sleeping on a mattress that was only slightly more comfortable than falling into a pit full of Punji sticks. His back was stiff and his shoulders, had they the capability to fall off, felt like they'd done just that. As he looked around for his hat, a glance across the way revealed that Mabel had actually beat him to the act of rising, although based on her expression, she certainly wasn't _shining_. She was a bleary-eyed, grumbling disaster, with errant strands of brown hair flying and sticking out all over her head.

"What happened to you?" he asked, after staring for a while.

Mabel answered while rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I kept having this dream about bears in orange jumpsuits, then Lady Gaga tried to throw me into a woodchipper so I had to kill her with a hand grenade made of fairies."

Dipper blinked as he slid around to hang his legs off the edge of his bed. "Uh, wow. I don't really know how to respond to that."

"Nnnnnrgh." She stood up wearily and wandered to the door. "Maybe I should lay off the snacks before bedtime."

He smiled, but for her benefit – and so she wouldn't wobble over and punch him – decided to keep his laughter to himself. "On second thought, that does seem like something two boxes of Chipackerz would do to a person's brain."

Mabel disappeared into the hallway with a grunt, leaving Dipper to finish readying himself for the day. His hat went on first thing, followed by his vest, but he left his shoes until he absolutely needed to put them on. As he walked out and toward the bathroom, the door to it opened and his sister emerged.

"I think I wanna die," she droned, bent over like an old lady. "I only got like, thirty-seven seconds of sleep."

Dipper tried to console her with a few gentle pats on the back. "I'm sure you'll feel better after breakfast. Are you good to cook?"

"Nooooooooo." Mabel fell against him and let her eyes close. "I'm not even good enough to remember what good _means_."

"Ouch. I guess I could try to cook, but I don't remember where you put the fire extinguisher." He looked nervously back down the hall at the top of the stairs, the image of a cloud of smoke from the last time he'd tried to make a meal popping up in his mind's eye. Laughing awkwardly and rubbing at his neck, he offered Mabel a shoulder to lean on as they walked. "Maybe we should just make a sandwich or something. Those can't catch on fire."

Just as they reached the first step, however, a set of sentences reached their ears which changed everything. "Kids! Wake up! I made breakfast for you!"

It was Stan, and the twins exchanged several surprised looks as they processed what he'd just said.

"Wait, what?" Mabel blinked, standing up fully. She was wide awake now. "I didn't know he could cook. I didn't even know he knew what the stove and junk was _for_."

Dipper was sniffing the air, face marked with mostly-restrained panic. "Do you smell smoke? I don't smell any. I bet he figured out a way to burn food smokelessly. That has to be what's happened."

"Either way, I gotta see this." Mabel broke away and down the stairs. Dipper was a few steps behind as they reached the kitchen, but both of them found it intact, clear of smoke, and refreshingly not on fire.

"There you are. Go ahead, sit down." Stan waved them toward the table while fussing with something they couldn't see on the stovetop. He was wearing a pink apron over his usual suit that made Mabel's face twist.

Dipper gave his sister a hand with getting into her chair before hefting himself up into another. "I don't know whether to say thanks or run outside screaming, but I'm willing to give it a shot."

Whether it was adrenaline or her usual boundless optimism, Mabel had achieved a smile and seemed to be back to her usual self. "Come on, bro! How bad could it be?" She drew back under the power of his anxious stare.

"_Don't ask and/or answer that," _he whispered, his tone almost pleading.

Stan turned with a minor flourish and approached, bearing a small dish in each hand. He sat them down before the twins and flashed an enormous, yellow-toothed old man smile. "Breakfast is served! Dig in!"

Even after staring at their own plates, then the other's plates, then their own plates again, neither twin was able to register what they were looking at until Mabel said it out loud.

"Um, Grunkle Stan," she began, leaning down to squint at her meal, "This is literally just a pat of butter on a dish."

"Yep!" he replied with a grin. "Dipper, stop making googly eyes at your food and eat already."

"What did you even give me?" the boy fired back, waving his hands at the puddle of yellowish goo dotted with brownish flecks of something he didn't want to think about too much, lest he start dry heaving. "Some kind of soup?"

Stan crossed his arms and glared down. "Soup? What am I, Bill Gates? Nah, it's a surprise. Try it!"

And Dipper did, dunking the tip of his index finger into the substance – which he found was cold – and licking it off. "Honey mustard. You gave me a plate of honey mustard."

"Isn't it great? Now eat up, you two have a lot of slave la—I mean, totally child-safe and completely legal work to do today." Stan shed his apron and tossed it aside, where it landed on the stove, and departed. After watching for a moment to make sure the garment wouldn't catch on fire, the twins peered down at their food.

"The heck." Mabel slid her plate away and went to fuming. "I can't maintain my awesomeness on a freaking square of butter until lunchtime." She took a finger and poked at it, licking off the residue. Her eyes bulged with horror. "This isn't even butter! It's that awful super-generic fake margarine!"

Dipper glowered at his honey mustard, nodding in agreement. "Why am I not surprised? Come on, we need to have a talk with him."

They hopped down and stalked out together in pursuit of their great uncle, who was found in the gift shop behind the counter sorting bills to put in the register as change. He only stopped when the two kids were standing right in front of the thing, glaring up at him. "What?"

Mabel went first, hands on her hips and mustering all her available displeasure. "A girl cannot sustain herself on fake butter alone, Grunkle Stan!"

Dipper was somewhat less dramatic, but no less unhappy. "You can't call that breakfast. I don't think you can even call it food. If you gave that to us in a prisoner of war camp, they'd try you for war crimes!"

"Yeah, well, war is heck, kid." Stan went back to counting out the cash, some of which it tucked into the register drawer. "Money's tight. You take what you can get."

"But I want eggs! And bacon!" Mabel whined loudly. When they both looked at her after she uttered the final word, she lashed out with an open-mouthed growl. "Bacon is yummy! I can have bacon if I want! It's not just _boy food_."

Her brother pointed out his issues with a raised hand and a vaguely confused look. "Mabel, you sleep with a pig. Eating bacon doesn't bother you?"

"I can compartmentalize, Dipper," she shot back.

"And that's a word you know." He dropped his hand and looked back up to Stan, stunned out of his wits.

"Look, like I said, money's tight. I can't afford to feed you two Waddles in effigy and eggs all the time. Just deal with it." Having determined the conversation was over, at least as far as he was concerned, Stan threw himself totally into his work. Dipper and Mabel continued to stare him down until he was forced to break his focus. "_What_?!"

Dipper took up the spokesman role; Mabel was too busy drooling beside him, repeatedly chanting 'bacon' at a volume just above a whisper. "You have a tour group that comes through here every weekday, and without fail you somehow manage to extort hundreds, if not _thousands_ of dollars from them. Why do you feed us condiments and false diary products?"

Stan stared at his complaint blankly. "You know I'm just gonna keep tellin' you that money is tight until you believe me or leave in disgust, right?"

They all looked over as the door to the outside opened. A yawning Wendy stepped through it, stretching and rubbing at her ruddy locks. "Morning," she said, falling still when she felt the tension. "Whoa. Think I walked into a family meeting. I'll just go get a soda." She strode past and into the living room.

"Which reminds me," Dipper said, pointing an accusatory finger at his uncle, "Wendy told me that last week you tried to pay her peanuts. Literal peanuts!"

"Tight. My money is in the act of being that. Now take your sister upstairs and snap her out of her creepy whispering so you two can get to work." He thumbed toward the door and went back to counting.

Defeated, he grabbed Mabel by the hand and lead her into the living room. Wendy was there, sipping on a can of Pitt and watching something on the old TV. "What's up?" she asked, giving them a friendly wave. "We all good in there?"

"No! Mabel wants bacon!" she yelled, stomping her foot.

"Uh oh. Anybody seen Waddles?" the redhead snickered, then blinked as Mabel clenched her fists and emitted a powerful hissing sound. "My bad. What were you talkin' about?"

"Why Stan won't even give us actual food for breakfast most days." Dipper fell into the old yellow recliner and sighed. "He makes tons of money!"

Wendy nodded, downing another swallow of Pitt. "True that. You should see the fat stacks of cash I put back in the safe on Fridays."

"Why no bacon then," Mabel sniffled, drifting to the entryway. "I'll be right back, I'ma go put on my mourning sweater."

Wendy stared at her all the way, then shook her head after the girl was out of sight. "She seems pretty bummed about not being able to eat pig meat. Not something I figured I'd be hearing from, you know, a pig _owner_."

Dipper brushed off her confusion and stood up. "I guess I'd better go get some soda myself. I'll need about ten cans to replace the energy of the food I _didn't_ get." After snatching a six-pack from the fridge, he walked up to see if Mabel was ready. "Hey! Is it safe to come in?" he called, knocking on the door.

"Yeah," she called back. Upon entering, he saw her clad in her gray thunderbolt sweater, seated on her bed. She was patting Waddles on the head, almost forlornly. "_H__ungry_."

"Here, drink one of these." He pulled a can from the pack and handed it to her. "You okay?"

"I want food. Why does he keep doing this?" She threw her hands up and fell back onto the mattress, catching the soda before it bonked her in the head. "Does he think we're fat?"

Dipper glanced down at himself and blinked. "Are you kidding? Look at me."

Mabel patted the belly of her sweater and groaned. "Tummy so mad, bro. I'm gonna fall over and waste away before noon."

That was enough for him. He popped the top on a soda and peered out through the open door. "If only he weren't so cheap. No, you know what? This isn't being cheap, this is being cruel. I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind." He rolled eyes and sighed. "Another piece."

"He won't listen. He won't even listen to me, and I'm clearly the best of us." Mabel slid out of bed and dragged herself across the floor. "I guess I gotta go do the register thing...ugh...math and starvation? I oughta send Grunkle Stan to The Hague."

"And that's a _place _you know." Dipper blinked with amazement. She left, groaning all the way. After he emptied his soda, he tossed the can into the waste basket and looked around. "I need some way to get Stan into a conversation he can't ignore, or leave, or weasel his way out of." While considering his options, a glint of light caught his eye. It came from a shining gold headband on the nightstand by Mabel's bed, one of her favorite pieces of attire. A smirk began to spread across his lips. "All that glitters," he murmured, walking over.

"I done forgot my shoes!" Mabel skipped back into their room, stopping dead in her tracks as she saw her brother take up the gleaming ornament. "Dipper Pines! Unhand my priceless hair taming thingy!" she gasped, darting over.

He held it close and turned away from her, peering down into his reflection on the surface. "I gotta borrow this. It's just shiny enough to lure Stan into having an actual conversation with me."

"Of course it is! I hand hammered it out of priceless Inca gold!' She snatched it away and clutched it to her chest. "It's the first wearable doohickey I ever made with my own two hands!"

"You made it at home out of a regular hairband and glued gold foil to it," he countered, arms crossed and looking slightly annoyed. "Do you even know what Inca means?"

"It means fancy and shiny!" She was hugging the hairband now and pouting hard.

Her demeanor only caused him to roll his eyes again. "Mabel, come on. Don't you want to know why Stan won't give us actual food half the time?"

"I would like some eggs and toast," she admitted. After looking over her shoulder at Waddles, who was oinking rhythmically in his sleep, she swallowed and returned her gaze to Dipper. "And some..._you know_..."

Seeing his chance, he reached over and gently took the precious band from her grasp. "And if you'll let me use this to trap him, we can call him out on it and make him give us those things."

She made no attempt to take it back. Slumped over, she rubbed her growling tummy and nodded. "Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Please be careful, though, seriously."

He nodded back with a reassuring smile. "I will. I promise."

* * *

Two hours later, a satisfied Stan pushed past the curtain between the museum and into the gift shop, rifling through a considerable wad of money. "Heh, this is like shooting fish in a barrel." He looked up at the ceiling in thought, realizing that wasn't really a good analogy. "Like...shearing legless sheep in a...it's like a stupidly easy thing." His good mood vanished when he saw his niece was not at the register. He turned to the living room door and yelled through it. "Mabel! Get down here and do the job I don't pay you for!"

That was when he laid eyes on the glittering yellow hairband, resting on the wood between the door and the gaudy Eye of Providence rug. Captivated, he shoved the money into the pocket of his blazer and reached for it. "What's this thing? One of those stupid magnetic bracelets Gideon sells? 'Center your chi'? I'll center your chi, you little punk." Before his hand could grab the thing, it slid away and under the door. "What the?"

Grumbling, he pushed open the door and looked down just in time to see it scooting across the carpet like a shiny mouse. "Waaaait a second...this is one of those new fangled spy drones, ain't it? Well, I'm gonna mail it back to ya in pieces, Gleeful!" He chased it through the room and to the stairs, watching with wide eyes as it bounced and traveled up the stairs. "Wow, they can even climb steps now. That ain't gonna help my paranoia." The band vanished around the corner at the top while he spoke. "Hey! Get back here!"

Dipper was peeking out of the kids' bedroom as Stan reached the top. In his hand was a fishing line, which was stretched down the hall and tied to the band. He pulled it in smoothly, being sure to keep the precious thing just out of reach. "Get ready," he whispered to Mabel, who was crouched on the other side of the doorway, behind the open door. With only a few feet remaining between himself and Stan, he ducked out of sight and yanked the hairband all the way into the room.

The old man came around the corner and entered, launching into an epic rant. "Snooping on my niece and nephew?! That's low, even for-"

"Now!" Dipper yelled.

Mabel flew out from behind the door and slammed it shut, locking it with an old bronze key. When Stan's confused eyes fell on her, she took the key and dropped it down the neck of her sweater. "We need to _talk_," she said lowly, a huge grin on her face.

"Uh." He watched Dipper rise from the floor and walk over to his sister, untying the line and returning her hairband when he got close. "Uh?"

The boy pinned him down with an unhappy glare. "You can say 'money is tight' all you want. You're not leaving this room until you give us a straight answer." The twins walked past and sat on Mabel's bed. "What is it with the no food, man?"

Mabel nodded, stopping as her stomach growled again. "We're growing little people, Grunkle Stan! We need all the nutrients and the minerals and the vitamins and the weird chemicals whose names I can't say!" She took her gold hairband and plopped it on. "It's okay baby, you're safe now."

"Well, uh, about that..." Nervously tugging at his collar, Stan backed away until he bumped into the locked door. "Things and stuff! Can I go now?" The twins stared at him with crossed arms. "No? Uh..."

"Do...do you not love us?" Mabel asked, lower lip becoming awfully shaky.

The old man visibly wilted at that remark and shuffled over to sit on Dipper's bed. "Of course I do, I just-"

"Then give me bacon!" she yelled, pointing at him.

Dipper leaned away, looking back at Mabel with a little bit of concern. "Easy there." He snapped his eyes to Stan. "Then what? All we want to know is why."

They watched him draw and release several deep breaths before, finally, he looked at each of them in turn. "Look, I've been puttin' money away in a trust for you two."

Mabel stood up and began to rail, only for her motion to be killed halfway through the sentence. "I knew it! You never lov—wait, could you repeat that?" She dropped her arms and stared.

Stan shed his fez, shrugged, and started glancing everywhere beside where his niece and nephew were. "That's what I do with most of the cash. Ain't got a house payment. Or a car payment. Means I can put most of it back for you two to get when you turn eighteen."

An absolutely dumbfounded Dipper also stood and approached. "But...but _why_?"

"Look, kid, I ain't had an easy life. I mean, what with not being that bright, ending up in jail in several South American countries, scraping around all over for money. I lived out most of my thirties in my car selling vacuums. That sucked, and don't you dare laugh at my pun." He smiled a little as Mabel ignored his request with a giggle. "I'm just sayin', it's better to be safe than sorry. I know your parents are doing right by you, but if something happens, I want you two to be okay. I sleep a little easier knowing I have your back, that's all."

Dipper shed his hat, eyes cast at the floor in something very close to shame. "I don't know what to say." Once they realized that Mabel apparently didn't either, both looked over at her.

She was on the verge of tears, and prevented them from falling only by launching herself at Stan and clinging to him. He patted her on the head and smiled. "Sorry kid, didn't mean to make you cry."

"_Waaaaaaaaaaaugh_!" was her reply as she failed to keep stemming the emotional tide.

A helpless Stan looked up at his nephew for guidance. "Is your sister gonna be okay?"

"Just let her cry it out." Dipper rubbed the back of his neck and tried to grin. "Welp, I guess I owe you an apolo-" His face dropped back into displeasure with stunning speed. "Wait, no I don't. You can save money and give us something more substantial than _honey mustard_."

He shrugged and put on a smirk. "Fair point." They both looked at Mabel again, who had suddenly stopped crying. "You all right down there?"

Her stomach was growling. Out of nowhere, she grabbed both lapels and drew his face closer until she was staring right into his eyeballs. "Grunkle Stan, I love you, but it's lunch time and I have only four words for you right now: Bacon. Lettuce. Tomato. Sammich."

Stan laughed again, but it was an uncomfortable noise. He tried to lean away, only to be defeated by Mabel's surprisingly powerful grip. "Gettin' creepy with the bacon thing, but fine. I'll close up and we can go to town."

A collective cheer rose up from the twins. Mabel walked over and unlocked the door. Dipper followed her out, and both of them went down the hall chanting 'bacon' loudly. Before Stan could reach the open door, however, Waddles appeared, staring up at him and oinking a hello. "Hey, pig." He looked at the backs of his niece and nephew as they started down the stairs. "Uh...I might better keep an eye on you until this whole pig meat deal passes. Just in case."


End file.
